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“Quickness: On Rhythms of Time in Contemporary Architecture,” the last of a trio of Five College symposia on the pedagogy and practice of contemporary architecture, will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 2 and Thursday, Oct. 3, in the Olver Design Building Atrium. Participation is open and free to all.

Co-convened by Pari Riahi of UMass Amherst, Laure Katsaros of Amherst College and Michael T. Davis of Mount Holyoke College, the two-day symposium completes an investigative series that opened in 2020. The first symposium, “Exactitude,” focused on the tensions between precision and play in architecture as a creative discipline, and in 2022, “Multiplicity,” investigated how architecture participated in other networks and fields.

The 2024 theme, “Quickness,” will investigate how time and duration affect architecture, in its ideation and actuality, and explore how digital platforms have radically shifted collective horizon of thinking and making. A group of distinguished architectural educators, historians, theorists and curators will expand on four themes:

• Quickness in Mind: From Simultaneity to Diachronicity 
• Quickness in Method: Abstraction versus Realization 
• Quickness in Making: Embracing the Material and Physical World
• Quickness in Body: Stasis, Floating and Agility   

The series is supported by many entities across the university and Five Colleges and has been made possible through a continuous commitment to co-thinking, co-working and dialogue across different fields and units. 

More information on the two-day symposium and its complete program can be found on the UMass Department of Architecture website.